A related issue under discussion among administration officials is whether the United States should soften its longstanding objection to the court exercising jurisdiction over citizens from a country that is not a party to its treaty, according to officials.

On the table is whether those decisions should instead depend on whether a particular country has a functioning justice system that can handle allegations of war crimes. The rationale is that it would be legitimate for the court to investigate Russian war crimes because Mr. Putin and his commanders appear to be committing them with domestic impunity.

Pentagon officials, however, are said to be balking. They contended that moving to a case-by-case approach would be shortsighted because it would make it harder for the United States to argue against court investigations into potential war crimes by American forces, officials said.

Some opponents of changing the American position are also said to have pointed to Israel — an ally that is also not a party to the treaty. The United States has objected to an investigation by the court of potential war crimes by Israeli forces. (...)

And in a Washington Post opinion column last week, John Bellinger, a national security lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, and Christopher J. Dodd, a former Democratic senator who was responsible for adding the exception to the 2002 law, argued that “U.S. support for an I.C.C. investigation of Russian war crimes would not constitute a double standard or be inconsistent with U.S. objections to the court’s claimed jurisdiction over U.S. personnel.

”While most of the world’s democracies joined the court a generation ago — including close U.S. allies like Britain — many American leaders were wary, fearing that it could be used or misused someday to prosecute American forces. (...)

Relations plunged during the Trump administration, when a top prosecutor for the court tried to investigate the torture of terrorism detainees during the Bush administration. The government imposed sanctions on court personnel, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced it as corrupt. (...)

Ukraine a Pawn in a Larger Struggle – Vijay Prashad pt 1

Is it too soon to start asking who lost Russia?

 

Like a couple of thieves dividing the loot. Something changed.

Denis Volkov, Levada’s director, said that initial feelings of “shock and confusion” that many Russians felt at the start of the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine was being replaced with the belief that Russia is besieged and that its people must rally around their leader.

“The confrontation with the West has consolidated people,” Mr. Volkov said, adding that some respondents said that while they generally did not support Mr. Putin, now was the time to do so.

According to that line of thinking, he said, people believe that “everyone is against us” and that “Putin defends us, otherwise we would be eaten alive.”

Mr. Volkov compared the prevailing mood in Russia to the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea in 2014, although he said the national feeling today was much darker.

“There is no euphoria, because this time the situation is much more serious and difficult,” he said. “There are victims, and it is unclear when it will all end.”